I'm releasing 0.4.5 very soon because I don't want everyone waiting so long for 1.0.0 since its going to take a long time.  In this intermediate version, I will disable Axioms since those are totally under construction right now, but most of the new features and bug fixes will be available.

The command nib{} is the only one where you actually have to do math to the pointer itself.  Like if you have a string of bytes in Str1 then you have to refer to it with nib{Str1*2} since there are twice as many nibbles addresses as there are byte addresses.

The other new thing you'll be able to do is pass by reference commands.  If you are familiar with other languages that use pointers then you might have an idea about what this is, but for those who don't, its a very powerful tool.  Pass by reference is used when you want the function you are using to modify the variables instead of (or in addition to) just returning the result of the calculation.  For instance, say you want to write a function that swaps 2 variables.  You can't just call sub(SWP,A,B) because the subroutine itself only knows the values of A and B and not where to put the result.  So instead you could write the subroutine like this:


:.This is the subroutine.
:.r₃ is used as a temporary.
:Lbl SWP
:{r₁}^r->r₃
:{r₂}^r->{r₁}^r
:r₃->{r₂}^r
:Return

:.You can call it like this
:sub(SWP,^oA,^oB)
:.A and B have now swapped their values

So what is going on here?  Well, instead of passing the value of A and B, you pass a pointer to A and B because not only can you read the value by using {pointer}, but you can also write to them as well since you have the pointer at your disposal.  Another way you can take advantage of this systems is by inventing your own data types!  For example, lets say you want a 32-bit double precision integer.  It conveniently fits in 2 Axe variables so you can store them in consecutive addresses like A could be the low word and B could be the high word.  Then, you can pass to the subroutine the pointer to A and the subroutine now has access to A and B because it can read and write to their values with {r1}r and {r1+2}r.  That means, you only need one argument to call the subroutine and you don't need to give it 2 "halves" of the number.  There's probably a billion other uses for this too, but it will definitely make the language more convenient.

I also will take calc84maniac's request from a while back to allow recursive subroutines because all of the Scheme programming I've been doing recently has really opened my eyes to the beauty and the simplicity of using them (even if they are bulkier and less efficient at the assembly side).  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll explain the command with some examples later.  Basically, it automatically saves and restores the r1-r6 variables before and after the call.

Oh dear, recursive subroutines is going to destroy Portal I use r1-r6 as temp variables inside of my object code, so im going to have to make sure that i don't use those across subroutines

As for all of the other features though, that sounds awesome

EDIT: Another question, where are R1-R6 stored anyway?  And how much can you recurse before bad things happen?

Oh dear, recursive subroutines is going to destroy Portal I use r1-r6 as temp variables inside of my object code, so im going to have to make sure that i don't use those across subroutines

As for all of the other features though, that sounds awesome

EDIT: Another question, where are R1-R6 stored anyway?  And how much can you recurse before bad things happen?

Well, my idea was to use sub()r for that. I'm not sure exactly how it's really going to work though.

I like the swapping idea. It may be very useful in games, like a RPG where you swap your HP with MP or swap HP between two chars, or when moving a char to another party slot.

Oh dear. I will need examples for this...

Wow, these all sound like wonderful additions!  I can't wait for 0.4.5!   Awesome!

I personally can't wait to see how nibble commands works.

Question: About when do you think 0.4.5 will be out?
I really, really want to use it...